


Mystery Soufflé (your heartstrings are tightropes)

by Maust



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Domestic Dean Winchester, Food Fight, Homophobic Language, M/M, Matchmaker Sam, References to Homophobia, Swearing, brief references to homophobia & homophobic language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:14:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maust/pseuds/Maust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn’t do compliments. Cas goes to Sam for help. / <i>“Sam, why does Dean not believe me when I say that his eyes are almost as beautiful as his soul?” </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Mystery Soufflé (your heartstrings are tightropes)

**Author's Note:**

> No beta, barely edited after posted on Tumblr (justshippinglarry). Will review in the morning. :) Basically, I wanted some domestic!destiel and some helpful!Sam. So I wrote this.

Sam knows that Dean has what could be kindly termed “self-esteem issues”. Not in the traditional "wow, I’m fucking ugly" way, because Dean’s always more than willing to admit that he’s a hot piece of ass. Dean just doesn’t believe he’s anything MORE than that. He thinks he’s not worth saving, that he’s stupid, that he has to use his looks because he doesn’t have anything else. Thinks he doesn’t deserve anything else. Sam gets that now, gets that Dean’s always felt guilty for things he couldn’t control. For some reason, he thinks he’s supposed to be Atlas or something, the invisible man holding the world up. 

Maybe that’s why Dean’s never liked being noticed. People who are noticed are people who matter. And Dean has never felt like he matters. 

That’s why Dean has a problem with Cas. Because from the moment they met, Cas saw him. Not through him and not as a weapon, but for Dean’s sake, and Dean’s sake alone. And Cas hasn’t looked away. 

Of course, knowing that his brother’s angel has finally gotten a hint doesn’t mean that Sam wants to be left to deal with the fallout. And the fallout is looking quite ugly indeed, with his hair mussed and his face covered in wrinkles and scratched over by a scowl. Frankly, he looks like shit, and Sam is going to go out on a limb and guess that that’s a certain Righteous Man’s fault. 

“Are you going to help me or not, Sam?" Castiel growls. "Why does Dean react so negatively to compliments? Why doesn’t he believe that his body is beautiful, but nowhere near as beautiful as the soul that it houses?” Cas slumps into the chair and runs a hand over his growing stubble, a gesture that would have seemed alarmingly human before. Then he looks up at Sam pitifully, eyes bright and lips drooping into a pout. 

Sam sighs and scratches his head, pointedly keeping the laptop open in hopes that Cas will get that he’s working, and doesn’t have time to deal with his brother’s relationship problems. “Well, uh, Cas. Um. What did Dean say exactly?” 

The former angel appears distraught, snapping with his words and at a rigid attention pose. “He laughed and told me to take the charity case to Good Will. I, uh, didn’t understand what he meant, so he distracted me with research on the oldest versions of Enochian. And it is fascinating, Sam,” he says earnestly. “The diction alone has evolved from such a primitive point. It shows that even angels are capable of change, irresolu—”

“So, he waved a sparkly object in front of you face, and you fell for it,” Sam summarizes. “Tough.” 

Castiel sighs, then says decisively, “Yes.” He adds, “And I only mention it because this isn’t the first time, Sam. It happens all the time, to the point where I can’t even tell him his hair doesn’t look nearly as crappy—” Sam almost has a heart attack at Cas’ use of the word, but he covers it by shifting in his seat. “—as it did yesterday without his defenses bristling up. And I just… I don’t understand how to make it stop.” 

Sam’s head is starting to hurt. Where the hell is Dean, anyway? He was supposed to get back from the grocery store an hour ago. There’s no way it takes that long to get the ingredients for one soufflé, and Cas is still staring at him imploringly. “Well, er, Dean has a lot of issues.” 

Cas nods, very seriously. Jesus, how does Dean deal with that stare all day? Though after putting up with it for fourteen hours a day, every day, Dean must have gained some sort of immunity. That, or he really doesn’t mind, which Sam finds far more likely. Sam is, after all, the one who had to deal with Dean’s my husband has been killed in combat shtick for months on end, while the entire time, Cas wasn’t even dead. He’d just gotten amnesia and completely forgotten Dean. Which, by the way, Sam was also present for. So he remembers Dean’s Stone Wall Jackson imitation when he choked out another lie to the nurses at the mental hospital where Sam was supposed to be, and Dean’s complete mental break-down in the car afterwards. 

They both remember the time that Dad, in one of the rare moments he was present, tried to have the sex talk with Sam. Sam had mentioned something about guys being with guys, and asked how the hell. His dad answered Sam, but he stared right at Dean. It doesn’t matter, he’d said. No son of mine will be a fucking faggot. It’s taken Dean years to get over that, has taken time and acceptance and, if Sam is totally honest… it’s taken Cas. 

“Sam.” 

Sam startles, and on reflex, says, “What?” Then his brain catches up to his mouth, and he says without thinking, “Cas, it’s... it's you. You scare the living crap out of him. You care about him almost as much as he cares about you, and that’s a… that’s a whole lot.” 

Castiel stares at him uncomprehendingly. 

Sam sighs and shifts in his chair. His legs have lost feeling completely, which is going to be a bitch in the morning. “Cas, do you know what he did when you were… um…” Sam makes the cuckoo sign, accentuating it with a slight noise. Cas nods, still frowning like Sam’s a particularly perplexing mathematical equation. “He slept with your trench coat under his fucking pillow, and sometimes, he cried into it, though he’d probably kill me more than Slender Man if he knew I was telling you that. The truth is, he missed you. And, look, Dean realized some stuff while you were gone. Like, he’d rather talk about his feelings with you than lose you. Cas, every issue he’s got with you is because he’s scared to death that you’ll walk out on us again. He’s scared that if you know he’s in love with you, you’ll fly away to wherever it is angels go when they aren’t angels anymore.” 

“Dean is in love with me?” Castiel ignores this last part. His face looks like it's been paralyzed, but Sam can't tell if it's fear or hope. Maybe both. 

So he rolls his eyes. “That was the obvious part. Go tell him you love him, then you can compliment his arm hairs.” 

Sam has never seen Castiel really smile before, but he’s guessing it looks a lot like this. Cas’ face nearly stretches itself into two, and his smile touches both his ears. He strides across to Sam, wraps him in a tight hug from behind, and tells his neck, “Thank you, Sam.” 

Sam breathes out, “No problem, Cas,” and then gulps in huge breaths of air the moment the man lets go. 

Cas starts to stride off determinedly, but stops in the doorway, turns, and says, “Sam. I look forward to officially being your brother. And I hope that you accept me as part of your family, because it appears that you have no choice.” Then he beams again, and continues to walk with purpose. 

The click of the door lock echoes down the hallway at the same time as Cas’ footsteps, creating a weird feedback loop. Both stop at the same time, then Dean calls, “Hey, Flintstones, I’m ho—” He’s cut off by two loud crashing sounds that can only be the grocery bags smashing to the floor, and then Cas’ gravely voice. Dean makes a strange noise, and then abruptly falls silent. Sam smiles to himself, humming as he reaches for his headphones. There’s a pounding noise on the stairs and against the wall. Sam pulls the headphones on, clucks his tongue, and hunches over his laptop again, because good fucking riddance. It would have made Sam’s life a lot easier if they’d just gotten over their issues a lot earlier, but whatever. At least he’s getting something done. 

Instead of someone. 

 

Dean’s soufflé turns out to be horribly underdone and missing most of its ingredients, but Sam barely complains. He saves his moaning for the eyes that Cas and Dean are giving one another, and happily bitches as they kiss. Dean stares at Cas like he’s the moon and stars, just like he always does. But something has changed. Now Dean looks really, truly happy. The lines in his face have smoothed out and the knot in his shoulders has loosened, letting him walk straight and talk more calmly. He smiles as he smears soufflé on Cas’ forehead, and laughs as he shoves his hands into Cas’ hair and holds Cas back until they’re practically wrestling at the table. Cas leans over him and whispers, “You’re beautiful,” in a voice Sam wasn’t supposed to hear. Cas traces Dean’s cheek like a blind man finally finding sight, like a man from the desert finding water, and like a man who’s lost his faith finding a better version of religion. 

And instead of pushing him away, instead of running and being scared, Dean whispers, “You too, Cas. You too,” and kisses him so gently that Sam’s face starts flushing with embarrassment. They are still at the dinner table, after all, and dinner’s almost over. It’s not like it would kill them to wait two minutes. But Sam holds his tongue and doesn’t say anything. How could he? Dean looks like someone took the world from his shoulders and told him he would never again have to carry it alone. 

In a way, Sam supposes, someone did. He smiles to himself, and metaphorically washes his hands of the whole matter, smile growing into full-blown smirking. Sam Winchester gets shit done, and so what if he’s smug? He is absolutely and unequivocally awesome, and his matchmaking skills are not to be questioned. Not ever, bitches, hear? Sam gets more and more proud of himself as he remembers the absolute mess that those two were, the way they’d hurt each other and the way they couldn’t manage to forgive the things that mattered. Maybe he should start a practice. He’d be a fucking great therapist. He could even get those little cards that advertise specialties, and tell every couple, Don’t worry. You should have seen my brother. He kicks his feet up on the table and grins at the ceiling, picturing it. Doctor Samuel Winchester, Ph.D. Fixed Dean and Castiel Winchester, can officially fix any relationship problem you could possibly fucking have. 

Dean hits him in the face with a soggy soufflé, and when he grins, Sam grins right back, then calmly leans forward and sticks his whole face into the plate. 

“Food fight!” Dean hollers. “Cas, get your weapons, man. Let’s Little House this caribou!”


End file.
